This is constantly being talked about as the Google Sandbox some pepole claim it does not even exist. Im afraid i can't give you any answer that is 100% but i think it got slim to none impact about the age of the domain.

Then it probably has some traffic and it may also still have some good links to it. I would get as much of the content from archive.org and put it back on the site. When Google comes around again, it generally doesn't take too kindly to sites grabbed for their PR and trust. Add your new content (gradually), but give Google some time to acclimate to the changes or say bye bye to the PR.

It can be time consuming, but you can pick up some good expired domains with traffic and PR if you are methodical about it.

As to your original question, I think it depends on what you want to use the site for. If you want to build a more legit site with some staying power, an older site with some existing juice might be a good choice. Spammy sites usually don't last in the indexes that long so, in that case, it doesn't really matter. Even with that said, I know people who prefer to use older, expired domains for all their sites.

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